Category: dilemma

not that you are not ALL respectable, dear readers

Posted on by Nathan

 

I still do this regularly; visit the main page of my site, but try to step outside myself and pretend that I am a first-time visitor. What impression do the first few comics make to somebody who doesn’t know me?

Usually I’m satisfied, occasionally I am alarmed. I mean, I often like to paint myself as a bit of a jerk for hilarity purposes, but part of the reason that’s funny is because people know I’m not really like that.

Does the irony always come across if people don’t really know me at all? I’m not always sure. Still, it can be an illuminating exercise. [January 10th, 2013]

maybe we should give it a try though, just to see?

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This comic is based on an actual conversation I had while I used to be an educational assistant at the local high school. Part of my job was to work with a student with Asperger’s Syndrome. This individual had a lot of fairly wild ideas, like becoming an international diamond thief or somehow granting himself superpowers via “cat DNA”. I attempted to be the voice of reason and also to keep him on task.

One day, he strolled into the computer lab and wondered aloud if there were any thunderstorms forecasted for the weekend, explaining that he was planning to harness said lightning in order to re-animate a deceased relative of his. I responded that this was not a good idea. Of course he demanded to know why, and though I wanted to argue that it was “wrong” I found myself unable to properly explain how I knew that.

In the end I had to take the “it just won’t work” line, something I did fairly often (even though sometimes I really felt like a buzzkill). [November 24, 2011]